


Speaking Maple Syrup

by ImJaebabie



Category: NCT (Band), SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Humor, Language Barrier, M/M, Miscommunication, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25725118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImJaebabie/pseuds/ImJaebabie
Summary: “Ah,” Taemin started, “I thought of something.”The shock wasn’t quite killing Jongin, but it was a close thing.“What?”“There might be a tutor?”So, potentially, Taemin could be blamed for it, the position Jongin was in.
Relationships: Kim Jongin | Kai/Mark Lee (NCT)
Comments: 42
Kudos: 400
Collections: SuperM Fest Round One





	Speaking Maple Syrup

**Author's Note:**

> kaimark is good and we should say it.
> 
> edit: thank u to @lexiconartist for talking w me through the original idea at first spark, & to speckled anne @speckledsolanacae for beta reading/telling me to quit while i was ahead so this could get posted. :)) <3 u both.

_Dear Diary,_

_I guess you could say it all started with the English tutoring lessons._

The thing was. The _thing_ was. 

God damn it. 

Jongin did not sign up for this. 

Or well, no, technically he did. His name existed in print and signature on the tutoring form so _yes,_ thank you he had actually signed up for it, was paying for it even, but nowhere in the sign-up process had anyone mentioned that _hey, your English tutor might be uhhhh really fuckin precious._

And they should have. They _really_ should have. 

If he had to say where it all went sideways, Jongin would cite the literal passive-aggressive blackmail that was his International Business major not requiring an English language class _per se,_ but highlighting all the post-graduate applications that listed it as a necessary ability. Seemed like something that could have been mentioned, oh, Jongin figured, _first year,_ but a few months before graduation was good too. 

No it wasn’t. 

“No moaning in the apartment unless it’s intercourse related,” Taemin said upon finding Jongin despairing over his inevitable doom and unemployment. 

“I need to learn English.”

Taemin shrugged. “So take a class.”

“By graduation.”

Sucking in a hiss through his teeth, Taemin glanced at the bed where Jongin lay expiring. “Not promising. Maybe download Duolingo?”

“Right, because we know I have the attention span and discipline for that,” Jongin sighed back. 

“If I could help, I would, but that about covers the extent of my advice.”

Despite loving his roommate, Jongin knew in his heart of hearts that that was not in fact true. Taemin would probably let him get killed in an alley trying to say enough of the right words in the wrong language to a critically threatening someone, rather than exert any energy he didn't immediately have on hand—but he’d learned that’s just how Taemin was. 

“Ah,” Taemin started, “I thought of something.”

The shock wasn’t quite killing Jongin, but it was a close thing. 

“What?”

“There might be a tutor?”

So, potentially, Taemin could be blamed for it, the position Jongin was in. 

That was, the tutor. The English tutor, some sort of young genius prodigy from Canada that wore round glasses like Harry Potter, and giggled too much and too often, and bit down over his bottom lip when he smiled, and used the word ‘um’ instead of breathing between verbalized sentences in any language. 

The tutor, Mark Lee. A handful of years younger than Jongin, legal in the way of being able to drink in public but very much illegal in the way he made Jongin’s heart melt like chocolate stuffed carelessly inside a toddler’s overall pocket, going all to mush inside the wrapper and leaving everything a mess that was difficult to clean out. 

Jongin was definitely a mess. He’d signed up with the intent to _learn,_ but all he was learning was that some mornings when they met up early before classes, Mark would forget to brush his hair and it would curl naturally, especially if it was more humid out, giving Jongin actual chest pain. He learned that Mark liked to play guitar—he built so many practice sentences around music—and would sometimes startle Jongin by appearing randomly on campus with his instrument, strumming and humming with his friend Ten there harmonizing along. Jongin learned that Mark occasionally forgot he was teaching English and not just having a conversation, rambling off in his accent with a whole vocabulary Jongin couldn’t follow, could only translate into a few words and those were _cute_ and _funny_ and _sweet._ And he didn’t dare say any of those out loud. 

Put briefly, Jongin learned he had a whole motherfucking crush on this wide-eyed practical _angel,_ and couldn’t do a thing about it. 

“Oh dude, you did pretty good on this one!”

Jongin took back the quiz sheet with the 76% grade on the top and tried not to die. It was hard to say which was worse: the embarrassment of the disappointing grade, or the satisfaction from the modicum of praise for it. 

“No, I should do better,” he muttered in response. 

Mark grinned at him, all adorable and supportive in a way that made Jongin want to memorize his English dictionary until his eyes bled. 

“It’s ok, you’re getting it, really I can tell. We’ll have you reading novels in English in no time! You’ll be watching Ellen without subtitles, just wait!”

Encouragement from Mark was like heroine and Jongin had never been one for substances but he thought he’d gladly develop an addiction if the drug came at right around 175cm with cheekbones cut from marble. 

_Dear Diary,_

_This is just a casual observation but he sounds so sexy when he speaks in English. Also in Korean. I bet he’d sound sexy in Japanese too—ok nevermind dangerous train of thought._

Taemin snorted when he saw the spread of English workbooks covering their dorm floor, Jongin in the midst of them trying to read two at once while writing in another. 

“Does that even work?”

Jongin waved his free hand at him, unwilling to break concentration just to converse. 

Never one to be deterred, Taemin flopped onto his bed with his face dangling off the side and hummed at Jongin loudly. “I can hear your brain liquefying, Nini. Is it worth it?”

He did not even have to consider that one. If the way his chest seized up just seeing Mark across the library was anything to go by, it was worth it and then some. 

“Like, you can get more tutoring after you graduate too. You’re still gonna get a job. All those companies are gonna take one look at your Finance concentration and that internship you did last summer and be eating each other to hire you.”

Oh. Right. Yeah, worth _that_ , because the tutoring was for _post grad job apps._

He ducked his head further into one of his vocabulary packets, not thinking about whether it faintly smelled of coffee the way Mark did. 

“Jongin, come on. It’s Friday. Let’s go drink with Baekhyun hyung.”

“Fine, just no shots.” Jongin gave in, because Taemin was convincing, and if not that, insufferably persistent, and maybe if he let loose he wouldn’t spend the whole weekend wondering if Mark was dating anyone or if he’d be too weirded out by a graduating Senior asking him out. 

They did shots. 

Jongin historically avoided shots. Not because he couldn’t handle them, but because after about the fourth one he usually entered a mode of existence he had to be told about in hindsight or shown through videos because he simply did not remember it. 

On Saturday morning, Taemin filled in the blanks. 

“So. Your little tutor.”

“Oh god.”

“The studying is all because of a crush? Nini you hopeless romantic dumbass.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“You spoke in only English after your fifth shot.”

Jongin’s eyes shot up, heedless of the pain in his head. “I did?”

“Yeah, no one had any idea what you were saying—“

“So it wasn’t good then…”

“Except Mark.”

The room went dark. No wait, that was Jongin closing his eyes in horror. “He was...how, Taeminie, tell me he wasn’t there.”

Patting Jongin’s head, Taemin chuckled darkly. “He wasn’t. But he did call you. No...I’m wrong. You called him.”

Jongin made a sound just shy of a wail, letting his head drop onto the breakfast table with a resounding thunk. “Why.”

“Beats me, you were speaking in _English,_ y’know?”

Nothing sounded better to Jongin than emailing the tutoring office and withdrawing from the program, rather than face Mark at their next appointment and find out what he had said—or attempted to say. It was a toss-up, which was scarier; he’d either spoken a bunch of idiotic nonsense in a language he had at best a minimal grasp on, or he’d managed some real sentences and god only knew what things he’d said to the boy then. 

But then his advisor handed him the application for an opening at his dream company, English speaking ability _preferred,_ and Jongin ditched his dignity and met at their usual time. 

To his credit, Mark acted like nothing had happened for most of the lesson. He mostly explained how to construct tenses and made Jongin do a bunch of diagramming, which didn’t really help Jongin focus away from the adorable way his glasses kept sliding down his sharp nose, but did make him think maybe it wasn’t going to be a thing. 

The hardest part of each lesson was always when Mark would say a handful of sentences in English and make Jongin write down what he heard, in Korean and English both, to check comprehension. 

After a few of those, Mark paused, and Jongin sighed in gratitude for the break. 

“So…what do you think?”

Jongin looked up, confused. “About what?”

Mark was both the easiest person to read and the hardest, his face a canvas of distinct expressions but ones Jongin could never successfully apply to the right thoughts. 

He looked vaguely nervous. 

“About the question? The last one I just asked…do you want to try it, hyung?”

The paper under his hands glared up at him as Jongin read back his work, and felt cold all over once he actually processed the last practice sentence. He’d been so focused on translating right, he hadn’t even acknowledged what it said. 

_Should we watch a movie?_

Jongin swallowed harshly. “Oh, w-what?

“If you don’t want to, it’s fine,” Mark insisted, fiddling with his pencil across from Jongin. “I mean you sounded kinda drunk when you suggested it but I thought it was a good idea.”

He. Wanted to see a movie? Had Jongin asked Mark out while drunk? Oh god. Oh no. 

“Mark, I mean I was drunk yeah, but—“

“Right, I get it, the alcohol made you feel ready for that, um, I mean you were using English pretty convincingly for the most part but definitely not fluent, I can understand if you wouldn’t want to try watching a whole movie in the language just to see if you could understand it.”

Jongin looked at Mark’s soft, earnest face, and concluded succinctly that there was a mistranslation occurring. He knew himself. He knew there was no way he had intentionally asked Mark to a movie _just_ to practice English. Most days he wasn’t even clever enough to think of using something like that as an excuse. Which meant it was just Mark—cute, honest Mark—interpreting Jongin’s terrible drunk English proposition in the most innocent possible way. 

Given the opening, however—“I want to! I think it would be a good challenge of...of my progress...comprehension. Yeah.”

As Jongin smiled as reassuring-ly as he could, Mark finally relaxed and smiled back. 

_Dear Diary,_

_This is more of a reminder to myself: we’re doing this for resume building! Not because Mark looks like he’d fit just right if I hugged him. That’s an irrelevant piece of information._

  
  


Mark lived in the special International students housing, which was a blessing because there was a stronger chance of Jongin amputating his own arm than there was of him taking him anywhere near the apartment where Lee Taemin could potentially involve himself. When Jongin showed up there, totally not vibrating with nerves over watching a movie with his younger English tutor, he was met at the door by Ten. 

“Oh…ohhh…”

Jongin definitely didn’t speak Thai, but even if he did, he doubted he’d understand what the cat-like boy turned and rattled off at dizzying speed to someone out of sight. 

“Hey, I’m—“

“Jongin hyung, right right, we know, come this way.”

He didn’t really have a choice other than to follow Ten through the house, passing through a kitchen and to a hallway of many rooms, some of them occupied. A blonde head Jongin recognized popped out of one room, overhearing their passing. 

“Oh, hey Lisa.” He waved. 

She nodded. “You owe Jennie like forty thousand won.”

That seemed true. “Alright.”

“Great. Be good, now.”

“Huh?”

He didn’t get an explanation; rather, Lisa disappeared and Ten pulled them up to one of the doors and knocked. “Markie,” he cooed, “your tutee is here!”

“My wha—oh.”

With a pencil behind his ear and bundled inside a big hoodie, Mark appeared at the door looking surprised, although Jongin was sure he’d gotten the time right. He’d only checked it several hundred times over the past week after all. 

“Hey.”

“Hi…um, come in I guess?”

Behind them, Ten snorted. The sound went ignored as Mark opened the door wide enough for Jongin to move inside. 

Mark Lee’s dorm room looked like a library had exploded in it. The sheer amount of books, study packets, and papers scattered around the floor and over the desk made Jongin almost not realize there was a second bed in the space, and he felt for whichever poor soul it was who had to fight their way through Mark’s academic mayhem just to sleep. 

“I meant to clean, I just got busy studying.”

Jongin shook his head. “Oh no, I don’t care.” He held up the notebook tucked under his arm. “I brought some of my own so I could blend in.”

He didn’t, obviously, with no way of knowing Mark lived in a fort made of notebook paper, but the way Mark broke into a breathless laugh was worth the bad joke. 

Once he stopped laughing, Mark gestured to his bed—it was obvious by the stack of textbooks on the table beside it—and said, “If you wanna chill for a minute, I gotta quick finish this assignment for my Korean History class. I also meant to have that done earlier…”

“It’s fine, take your time.”

Jongin could easily sit and review his vocabulary in preparation for the movie while Mark worked. Sit easily on Mark’s bed. He could easily sit there and concentrate and not think about other things. 

Ok. Not easily. 

After a little while of bare minimum vocab review, Jongin checked to see if Mark seemed almost done studying, which was a colossal mistake. Nothing could have prepared him to see the younger boy, concentrating hard on his work, but sitting in an almost complete split that had his shorts riding up his thighs, leaving way too much slim leg visible before the top of his shin-high socks. 

Running from the room seemed like a reasonable reaction—Jongin barely managed not to do it. 

Sighing suddenly, Mark dropped his pencil and rubbed at his eyes, drawing one foot into the center as he closed a few books. “Okay, sorry, I think I’m good on that now.” Things put sort of away, he lithely popped up from the floor and turned to Jongin, his smile tired but warm. 

Had he been studying like that all day? On a Saturday? Jongin couldn’t decide if it was endearing or worrying. 

“So…movie?”

Mark nodded, grabbing a laptop from its hiding spot under the myriad of papers on his desk and handing it to Jongin before climbing onto the bed next to him. 

Jongin forced his focus on opening the device and not on Mark settling down beside him, their legs barely touching. 

The chosen movie was Avengers: Infinity War, and Jongin felt lost almost immediately in the fast-paced, super colloquial dialogue. He’d even seen it before, but without subtitles it felt like he was trying to write the dialogue himself based on his background knowledge of what was probably being said and the nature of the characters. But the way Mark giggled every few minutes, he knew his attempts were nowhere near as clever as the actual script. 

About a third of the way through, Mark glanced up at him. 

His smile dropped. “Oh, I forgot…hyung, are you understanding any of this?” 

The furrow of worry in his brow was so cute, Jongin couldn’t help smiling. He shook his head. “No, not really.”

Mark deflated instantly. “Oh god. I’m such a bad tutor. I really thought I’d gotten enough vocabulary into our lessons for you, I’m really sorry, hyung.”

“No! You’re doing great, this is just…” he paused, unsure of what to say. If he tried to concentrate more, he’d probably understand better, but he couldn’t. Not when the scene changes kept lighting Mark’s face with different colors, not when he giggled constantly, not when he felt relaxed and warm there next to him…

“The movie just moves really fast,” Jongin said. “I’m getting some of it.”

But Mark still looked disappointed, a look so illegal Jongin wondered how many people were already imprisoned for being the cause of it in the past. 

“Hey, it’s fine, Mark!” he reassured again, and out of reflex reached to squeeze his arm. The shock Jongin felt at his own boldness almost froze him, but he didn’t flinch. “If we put on subtitles I can just try matching up the words?”

If Mark’s eyes got one degree wider, he was going to put owls out of business. 

“That’s a good idea! Are you ok with it, though?”

_I am ok with anything. I’m ok with playing the movie backwards. I’m ok with it dubbed over in Russian. So long as I’m sitting next to you._

Jongin waited until his traitorous mind finished gushing poetic nonsense and calmed down before nodding. “Yeah.”

As expected, it didn’t matter. He just laughed when Mark laughed, stayed quiet when it was serious, and when Mark softly gasped at the heartbreaking scenes near the end, Jongin dared to slip an arm around his shoulders. 

“Sorry, haha,” Mark apologized for some reason as the credits rolled, “I forgot how sad that one gets.”

He said this looking up at Jongin from tucked under his arm, clearly sleepy and eyes a bit glassy from tearing up, and Jongin…well, autopilot was his only hope. 

“It was fine.”

“Did you learn anything?”

_Learn that I’m losing it? Yes._

“Oh yeah, I think it was making some sense in English. For sure.”

And maybe that wasn’t strictly true, but when Jongin replayed the moment in his mind later as he snuck into his darkened apartment late, Mark’s enthusiastic _then should we watch another movie sometime?_ the prettiest words he’d ever heard still ringing in his ears, he didn’t feel bad about the fib at all. 

_Dear Diary,_

_I like him a normal amount._

  
  


“I will kill you if you don’t stop sighing like that.”

Jongin turned his head so his ear lay flat against the table in the emptying lecture hall, rather than his chin pressing into the surface, so that he could peek over his outstretched arm and direct his forlorn look at Sehun instead. 

“Pout at me all you want. I won’t pity you for whatever this is about.”

He could survive without pity, whatever. What he apparently couldn’t survive was Mark having to cancel on him for some urgent test cramming, thus taking what would have been their fourth movie night off Jongin’s schedule. Not that anyone was counting. 

“So…what if there was this younger guy…who was like the cutest and sweetest and most precious boy alive…but obviously too good to be true and obviously had lots of options closer to his age, like wouldn’t even have a reason to look further than that…and like, it would probably make him uncomfortable if someone graduating asked him out, right? Like that wouldn’t be cool to do, would be weird—“

“Just ask Mark out, idiot.”

Jongin sat up. “Who told you.”

Sehun eyed him disdainfully. “Who do you think?”

“Dammit. Baekhyun hyung is such a traitor.”

“Actually, it was my friend Johnny, who’s close with Mark, and said Mark apparently talks about you a lot.”

A wildfire ignited in the middle of Jongin’s brain, his breath momentarily stopping. “He does what?” he asked, once it came back. 

“Talk. About you. I think in English cause Johnny is also fluent. So I’m saying...take that boy on a date.”

The cancelled movie night text still sitting heavy in his phone, Jongin gripped the device tight and wheezed as if all one word, “Fuuuuck-I-don’t-think-I-can-do-it.”

“Alright. Don’t then.”

“Wait. No, I want to.”

“So, do?”

“But I’m nervous becau—“

Sehun slapped the back of his head, and Jongin figured he wasn’t the best person to go to for sympathy. 

He decided he didn’t need it anyway, the sympathy. He’d go into their rescheduled English-practicing-movie-night strong, confident, and ready to tell Mark Lee he’d like to buy him dinner or coffee or maybe the moon if he wanted that, and Jongin wouldn’t be stopped. 

Unless Mark...fell asleep, a bundle of sweatpants and loose T-shirt and askew glasses against Jongin’s right shoulder, breathing quietly with his mouth open a little and his arms crossed tightly over his waist. 

Jongin stared for an unreasonably long amount of time. If he were any good at art, he’d easily have memorized each of Mark’s angelic features enough to recreate them in perfect detail. The only problem was that, exactly in the same way as when a cat falls asleep in one's lap, Jongin absolutely couldn’t move for fear of waking his snoozing tutor up, even if the movie had finished several minutes ago. 

Oh god, Mark kitty? Oh? god.

It was amid this brain-blending thought that the dorm door opened suddenly, a tall, handsome young man stepping in only to stop and stare at them quizzically. 

Jongin held a finger to his lips instinctively. 

The boy nodded, then studied Jongin’s face for a moment before whispering, “You’re Jongin hyung.”

“Yeah. Um. What do I do?”

“Nothing. I guess you live here now.”

Jongin blinked, his heart picking up speed as though it hadn’t already been racing a little. 

“Huh?”

Before the boy could reply, Mark stirred slightly and then tilted over and flopped across Jongin’s lap, exhaling a sigh as he settled again. 

With both hands raised and frozen in shock, Jongin looked up slowly.

The boy chuckled quietly. “I’m surprised he’s even sleeping, he hasn’t been doing that much. You wanna try moving him or waking him up? Be my guest. Or, don’t. Doesn’t bother me if you sleep here.”

“I. Wow um…I can’t really…I don’t know. I don’t want to be weird?”

“I’m not worried. If you move wrong, I have no qualms about clocking you.”

The other bed creaked gently as the boy kicked off his shoes and climbed into it, still grinning smugly as he switched off the lamp and left them in the late-night darkness as though Jongin wasn’t going through a whole crisis five feet away. 

“I’m Yukhei, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, I think.”

“You too, hyung. Thanks for being so nice to him.”

In the dark, still going back and forth over whether or not to move, and not moving in the meantime, Jongin looked down at the soft silhouette that was Mark’s face. He gave in, and combed through a few locks of Mark’s feather-soft black hair. 

“Yeah…happy to.”

_Dear Diary,_

_If I can’t date him, do you think he’d be opposed to being adopted? … or is that too weird… ? … yeah no, that’s fucking weird. Jesus, no. If I can’t date him I’ll just. Uh. Haha. Is passing away too dramatic?_

Mark had not exactly been… _happy,_ when he’d woken up, very _very_ early in the morning, just before Jongin could enact his plan of extracting himself hopefully without waking him. 

“Oh my god. Oh my god, hyung. Why are you still here?!”

Groggily, Jongin had done his best to explain, though flushed and flustered Mark in the early morning light didn’t make it easy. Even once he said he hadn’t wanted to wake him, that he’d looked like he needed his rest, Mark had still made a strangled sound and hastily pulled at Jongin’s arm till he was out of the bed. 

“This is so embarrassing, oh my god, you have to go home right now...I can’t believe you slept here! Th-that has got to be against the tutoring guidelines I’m sure, oh my fucking scholarship holy shit you have to leave!”

So. Once Jongin had been physically ejected from the house out into the cold air and weak first light of morning, he’d felt a little less confident about the date thing. 

“What’s this? Walk of shame? A successful Mark-Lee-ing, then?” wheedled Taemin, the second Jongin trudged through the door. 

Jongin only scowled and flipped him off before retreating to bed. 

It was very annoying to wake later and learn that his normal method (re: sleeping) of recovering from negative emotions (re: probable rejection) did absolutely nothing to help. Jongin’s first thought was to remember that Mark was upset with him, that Jongin had crossed a boundary too casually and even put Mark in a bad position, and he didn’t know whether he could come back from that. 

Maybe he just needed to apologize more, better, correctly. No, he at least needed to do that. 

Mark beat him to it. Which…huh?

“Hyung, I’m so sorry, I was so rude, I really am sorry,” Mark blurted at their next lesson before Jongin even had the chance to put his bag down or take off his jacket. He was just stuck there, one arm half out of his sleeve and at a loss for words as Mark turned the entire situation back on himself somehow.

“I fell asleep in the middle of a _lesson,_ that’s so unprofessional, it’s my own fault though for trying to do our lessons so late at night, like what the fuck was I thinking?” Mark gasped, momentarily clapping a hand over his mouth. “Oh my god. I am _not_ supposed to swear, that’s even _more_ unprofessional. Oh god. Hyung. I’m so sorry.” He dropped back into his chair, the plastic seat creaking and rolling a little backwards as he tilted forward and smacked his forehead right into his open book on the table. 

The study room practically echoed, the small space in the library just a blank little box Mark had insisted on reserving rather than just meeting in one of their rooms. Which...seemed much more fair, now. 

Jongin finally thawed enough from his shock to slide the bag off his shoulder and drop it near the table leg, carefully taking his own seat. 

“Mark, I don’t care if you curse,” he started with, because, well, he really didn’t. Mark saying fuck was about as offensive as frown-y face made out of marshmallows. It was like a puppy holding a knife-shaped squeak toy. If anything, it was endearing (it just…was endearing. All reasoning aside.). 

Jongin propped an elbow on the table and dragged his hand through his hair. Mark kept his head down, apparently too mortified to move. But, Jongin really felt he should be the mortified one. So he put his head down too, making sure to face away. No need to make things worse.

“And you don’t need to apologize to me,” Jongin said, words feeling like they dropped from his mouth and rolled around awkwardly on the tabletop, nothing to indicate whether Mark was even hearing him. “I should apologize. I…am apologizing. I should have just gone home. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable and made you worried about your job. I think…you’re a great tutor, and I shouldn’t have put that in jeopardy because…” _I have a stupid crush,_ “of a misguided sense of…” _affection, adoration,_ “...of friend…ship.” 

Well, that could have gone better.

He heard Mark sigh. “Right,” Mark replied, voice disappointed and muffled somewhat in the glossed book pages his face was buried in. “Regardless of whose mistake that was, the first mistake was…” he sighed again, smaller this time. “…being too friendly. You’re right. I’m supposed to be your tutor. Not a movie night…buddy. You’re right.” 

What. What? 

Jongin was becoming used to the feeling of panic spreading it’s adrenaline-charged fingers inside his lungs, letting him know when he’d—yet again—fucked up. He lifted his head, turning still with half his chest on the table to look at Mark still prone in his book. 

“That’s not…that isn’t what I meant,” he said.

And then Mark picked up his head, a serious and firm line in his lips, glasses pushed high up on his nose from being smashed against another surface. He shook his head. “It’s true, though. I just let this become like, hanging out. And you’re paying for the lessons, and I stopped taking it seriously because…” he paused, lips stuttering like they knew what to say next and he just stopped them too soon. “Because I was lazy.”

“Mark, no.” 

“It’s fine, I’ll do better. I’m sorry, I don’t think we can do any more movies, we’ll just stick to the normal tutoring times in the schedule.” He nodded, resolute, and spread his hands over the pages, straightening them. “We gotta…we gotta work on verb tenses. You’re still using past-perfect incorrectly.”

Considering Jongin couldn’t even recall what that _was,_ he knew Mark was right. “Being friendly wasn’t a fault, Mark,” Jongin tried, one last attempt before Mark started stringing out diagramming sentences for him again.

Mark smiled, but only in a tight, polite way. “I appreciate it, hyung. But let’s just focus on your lessons, alright? I owe you that. It’s not fair for me to get distracted by…yeah. Do you have your last vocabulary sheet with you?”

Jongin knew a losing battle when he was in one, most of the time. He just wondered why Mark would blame himself so sternly when he clearly hadn’t done anything wrong. An hour after they finished the lesson and Mark had made a hurried escape, Jongin still didn’t have the answer—just had a headache and the sinking feeling he’d managed to destroy even the tiny bit of progress he’d made.

“This isn’t your dorm, you can’t sleep here,” Sehun’s voice said from above him, suddenly.

Figured. 

“Hey, how is it that I fuck things up before they even happen?”

The table jolted, jerking under Jongin where he’d gone back to draping his torso across it, making him shift weirdly and bonk his head into the worn surface. Sehun had kicked it.

“You have fuck-up disease. But only for matters of the heart, I think.” 

“That’s poetic, thank you.” 

“I heard it’s incurable.”

“Amazing.”

“Take your flashcards and go home, hyung.”

_Dear Diary,_

_:(_

Of the places on campus Jongin was familiar with, he would probably rank the cafeteria very low on the threatening scale (compared to like the sciences building with all the pre-med students, where he was pretty sure people regularly got knifed. Pre-meds were insane.) Except maybe from a food perspective, but he’d never had a problem with it. Taemin complained often about the pancake breakfasts, but that was because he had a low gluten tolerance he refused to acknowledge. 

All beside the point. Usually, Jongin did not feel threatened in the cafeteria.

He very much did, though, with Ten staring down at him as he tried to eat his kimbap.

“Hello,” Jongin hazarded. 

“Yeah…hmm.” 

Behind Ten, Yukhei in his tallness and another shorter, very angular guy hovered. Yukhei looked like the pause preventing him from proceeding toward the sushi station was physically painful, while the other guy just watched Ten quietly with his large eyes.

Jongin tried again. “Can I help—”

“No, no. I’m just trying to like, tell if you’re the type to make someone sad on purpose or if Mark Lee is acting like this ‘cause of overworking again.” 

“W-what?”

“Ten, Mark has to tutor in fifteen minutes, can we just get some food and take it back before he leaves? Interrogation probably isn’t necessary here,” the other guy said, nudging Ten with his shoulder.

Yukhei agreed loudly, stepping over to grab them both by their elbows. “Taeyong’s right. It’s just another case of Mark Lee Perfectionism hitting on some deadlines and like, trying to tutor eight people when normal tutors have like three. Probably nothing to do with Jongin hyung at all.”

Kimbap limp in his hand, Jongin looked up at Yukhei in horror. He tutored _how many_ people?? Brief flashes of the last two weeks of lessons spun through his mind; Mark keeping it very professional, hardly even conversing like he used to. Mark getting tired and accidentally putting his eraser in his mouth instead of his Hi-Chew. (Jongin wanted to cry.) And Mark very obviously working on other homework while Jongin suffered through his exercises. 

Jongin set his food down. “He does this a lot?” 

“Yeah, he’s a study-holic. Thought you would have noticed?”  
  
“I mean he seemed busy…”

Two hands coming down on the table, Ten narrowed his eyes in Jongin’s face. “He was more relaxed for a while…he was all smiley and giggly…you _used_ to come over…”

Ah, the thing Jongin fucked up. “He decided it wasn’t professional.”

“Oh, he would say that,” the Taeyong guy said, eyes doleful. It seemed like his eyes conveyed every single emotion. Jongin got the faint but distinct feeling Baekhyun would hunt this boy like the deer his eyes implied if given the chance.

Jongin shook the thought from his head. “Well, yeah, he did. So no more movies as practice. Just normal tutoring, but he has seemed tired.”

By that point Yukhei was all but physically hauling them away, Taeyong going pretty willingly and Ten still scrabbling at Jongin’s table, eyes accusing. “Then do-—” Yukhei looped an arm around Ten’s waist, removing him. ”—something about it!”

And well, that was a thought. If Mark was really that stressed out and tired, Jongin could at least be helpful.

_Dear Diary,_

_Between coffee and snack treats, which gift says “I’d like to take care of you for the rest of my life,” more quietly? Or should I just leave off the greeting card?_

Jongin had resorted to bribing the on-desk librarian in order to get the bag of food and drinks for Mark into the study room, which was probably an indication that he’d gone a little overboard, but he didn’t have a good idea how far these would need to go, so. “Better to overcompensate than fall short” was the motto he lived by. Sometimes. When he remembered to. 

“Hoarding for the apocalypse?” Mark asked when he arrived, dumping his bag on the couch seat next to all Jongin’s gifts. Many times Jongin had wished he could come up with a reason for them to sit there instead of in the stand-alone chairs that faced each other, but unfortunately he’d never conceived of a good enough excuse. 

So as usual he got his books out and sat himself down in the chair, and made sure to keep his voice casual and not look directly at Mark while saying, “Oh those? No, I was hoping you’d take them off my hands.” 

Mark stopped mid folder-from-backpack-removal. “What? Why?”

“Oh just, y’know. I had all these lying around…extra from…my mom…” If his mom were a convenience store, maybe. Where he was going with this, Jongin didn’t know. Words kept coming out of his mouth. “And yeah you seem like you appreciate snacks, so. For you.”

Maybe once Jongin learned how to speak this second language, next he’d seek out tutoring on shutting the fuck up in all of them.

“I do…appreciate snacks…” Mark agreed as he sat, speaking slowly like it was a secret to admit.

“Awesome! They’re yours. And I also got coffee on my way here so I grabbed you one too.”

He slid the hot to-go cup over to Mark, hoping his guess at Americano with a little cream was close enough.

Mark took the cup carefully. However, it did look like a glint of relief appeared in his eyes, rimmed beneath by dark circles as they were. “Thanks, hyung,” he said.

“No problem, everyone needs caffeine.”

“Right,” Mark agreed, then, horribly, added, “can’t afford to fall asleep on you again, good point.”

“No, that’s…not what I meant…” 

Mark just smiled. “No worries! Let’s get to it? We should do that practice interview conversation again.”

Jongin sighed. “Yeah, alright.”

_Dear Diary,_

_Maybe I WILL download Duolingo._

At this later hour in Jongin’s college career, there wasn’t a lot of time in between classwork, studying, tutoring, trying to get a few meals, and sleeping for Jongin to fit in exercise, but he did his best. Usually at weird hours of the night or early morning, but occasionally random hours he found unexpectedly free in the afternoon. It was one of these instances that left Jongin forced to make the decision between going to his tutoring session directly from the gym, or being late and wasting precious time to shower and appear properly.

As much as he’d like to be only clean and cool in front of Mark, Jongin far preferred simply being around him _longer,_ and also knew he genuinely couldn’t afford missing a second of learning. Even if his focus was terrible, Mark’s time was not free nor was it Jongin’s to waste, not when he knew what Mark had on his plate already. 

His best effort was to message Mark asking if he’d be willing to meet him somewhere other than the library; he could justify being a post-workout mess in the student center, but the library felt sacred. And less well-ventilated. 

“Hey, thanks for being flexible,” Jongin said, dropping his gym bag as he pulled out the chair across from Mark in the student center, and willed himself not to remember his previous witness of Mark’s actual flexibility. “Do you want this mineral water? It was a bogo at the corner mart so—Mark?”

Mark’s face had taken on a dazed sort of look, his glasses slid far towards the end of his nose. What he was staring at was unclear; Jongin’s chin? His shirt? Had he worn one of his weird old graphic tees?

A glance down to check proved he hadn’t, just the nondescript blue athletic v-neck from his brief stint on the rowing team. It was sweat-wicking, and stretchy enough to offset being slightly tight. Otherwise, less than noteworthy. 

“You good?”

“…You…good, what?”

“Uh. Are you…are you ok?”

Mark blinked rapidly, almost a flutter, and took in a sharp breath. “Did you rush? You didn’t need to.”

“Well I don’t want to waste your time. It’s important, you’re...you’re important.” Jongin left off the _to me,_ lest he make Mark uncomfortable.

“Because of your applications, which you need to learn English for,” clarified Mark.

“Actually, it’s just because your time is valuable, Mark. You help a lot of people, and you have your own work to do. I intend to respect that.” If only to stress his sincerity further, Jongin took his phone from his shorts pocket and switched it to vibrate before putting it in the far pocket of his bag. “So, what am I learning today? I think I was getting pretty good with those common travel phrases from last time, should we go back over them?”

Mark seemed shocked. “You’re…like, excited about it? The lesson?”

“Mark, I would eat my dictionary if you told me it was an effective learning method.”

“It’s not.”

“I know.”

“Hyung, I um…” Mark hesitated, eyes flitting between Jongin’s face and the table. “Well.”

The twitch in Mark’s fingers around his pen and the waver in his voice had Jongin on edge. “Yeah, what is it?” he asked.

Straightening, Mark inhaled, and said, “I just want to tell you I...I think you're…” Mark deflated slightly. “…doing great. I really believe you can do this. You’ve really, totally got this.”

Validation and encouragement was its own kind of reward, Jongin decided, although he didn’t think it warranted saying with so much effort. Mark could pat his shoulder and he’d value it.

“Thanks,” he replied, “but how about saving your praises for when I pass your final assessment with flying colors?” Jongin grinned with as much warmth as he had.

“Well then, hyung, start with those phrases again!” 

_Dear Diary,_

_Actually, I think what I want to learn next is Mark language, because that’s something totally different. And I sure as hell don’t know a word of it._

Like many people, Jongin had been to his share of college parties. He’d probably been to more than his share, honestly, and that meant everything from birthday parties to frat parties to graduation parties, as well as all the ones in between. He figured he knew what to expect, and he usually did.

But maybe that didn’t hold true for parties in the International Student Housing. Whether the foreign kids just partied harder or perhaps the rules of their prestigious institution did not somehow apply there, Jongin felt that entering that house had somehow slipped him into some liminal space where anything was allowed.

And it was absolutely awe-inspiring to him. 

It did not seem to awe-inspire Taemin, but Jongin had accepted long ago that his best friend was unhinged in a way he could not, and would not, ever replicate. 

The number of partiers there who were not foreign students was low, and Jongin decided that accounted for why he hadn’t previously heard that partying on that corner of campus was an inexplicable rage. It must be a well-held secret knowledge. Probably along the lines of how the hell they managed to hang a keg from the ceiling, or smuggle that much absinthe into an accredited university without suspicion. He’d had no idea the invitation from Ten and Yukhei was such a rare thing, but he also wasn’t that sure how they’d gotten his phone number. So. 

But all of this was beside the point, the point being: Mark was not _at_ this party. Jongin had checked, and if he’d known it, he wouldn’t have bothered coming.

“You’re being a downer,” Taemin said, holding his pinky aloft while he downed another cup of the party juice, which Jongin knew contained every alcohol he could name and some he couldn’t, and was liable to kill a horse.

“Well, sorry.” 

“If you’re so bored by the rest of us, just go say ‘hi’ to him,” suggested Ten, who appeared suddenly in a way that only he seemed able. Jongin didn’t wince...much. “I thought you were usually a party sort of person?”

Jongin watched with skepticism as Ten linked arms with Taemin, leaning into Jongin’s best friend’s shoulder like he belonged there. He didn’t know when that had started or where, and his general fear of...well, both of them, firmly outweighed the curiosity. Taemin would tell him if he wanted Jongin to know.

“I’d talk to Mark if he was here,” said Jongin, pouting and knowing it.

“Yeah, that’s why we invited you. He is here.”

“No he is not.”

“Don’t correct me in my own house. He is. He’s in his room. Where else would he be this close to midterms?”

Ten took Taemin’s cup and gulped from it, licking his lips obscenely as he handed it back, and Jongin knew he had limited time before he did not want to be around for the rest of whatever they might do. “You’re sure?” Jongin asked.

“Took him some dinner myself before all this started.” 

It was enough to get Jongin moving. He didn’t bother excusing himself, and he didn’t think they’d notice much anyway, rather preoccupied already as Taemin was, hooking a finger into Ten’s necklace and tugging him closer. 

Weaving through an active party was a skill and Jongin had it. It took a kind of grace to avoid swinging arms loosely holding party cups, and people running blindly, and skirt past couples lip-locked in too-small hallways. One could not simply walk into the back of a college house during a rager. So it took Jongin a minute to wind his way down the hall to Mark’s door, but then he was in front of it, holding up a hand to knock, and...not knocking.

“Well, come on.”

“He’s busy studying, I shouldn’t.”

“And what, just not see him? Leave?”

“Probably.”

“No. Well?...maybe. No! Yes. No, I won’t.”

Jongin was talking to himself. Alone—relatively, considering the couple at the front end of the hall glued to each other’s faces (oh god, that was that Japanese kid, wasn’t it? What was his name…)—as he was, Jongin had resorted to trying to convince himself to disturb Mark. And he wasn’t doing a good job of it.

The benefit of the party’s brain-numbing decibel level was that when Jongin let his forehead smack into Mark’s door in frustration, he was fairly sure it couldn’t be heard. He couldn’t hear it himself. 

“This is stupid and I’m leaving,” he finally decided, reaching for the doorknob, feeling the warm metal under his hand, willing his muscles to activate and turn it. They didn’t, and he knew anyway that he should knock, not just burst in. 

So Jongin removed his hand and turned around, heading back to the party and more specifically the kitchen. Maybe with a drink in his system he’d have the guts to go knock, but maybe it would be even less smart to do it then .

In the communal dining room, Jongin was met with the sight of someone on their back atop the table, back arched and stomach somehow concave, naval just the perfect dip for an R-rated body shot. Simultaneously, someone else was being held in the arms of a seated person Jongin belatedly recognized as Yukhei, _also_ being used for a body shot. And the difficult part to process was that the person on the table was Ten, with Taemin braced over him and attached to his stomach not unlike a leech, and that the person Yukhei was holding appeared to be Taeyong, which aligned with how he seemed to be always in Ten’s vicinity, but did not explain why Baekhyun was there—excepting the usual condition that if it was a party, Baekhyun was there implicitly—and was kneeling to take the shot off Taeyong’s stomach before leaning up to bite the lime of out Yukhei’s mouth.

Jongin went to the kitchen, if only to see if he could find an ounce of sanity there.

Around the collection of people there, he managed to scrounge out a probably unused cup and pull almost a full ladle of punch from the bottom of the bowl, throwing the drink back and shuddering immediately after. Normally, he’d had pregamed enough not to taste something like this, but circumstances were more last-resort than usual. God, it had an aftertaste too, one that clung to his tongue, residual and off-tasting like sugar substitute. 

Somewhere between guessing if the taste was splenda or stevia, Jongin felt the microcosm of the kitchen crowd shift, the movement necessary for someone to open the refrigerator, and a mildly hoarse voice say, “Sorry, I just need to get a water bottle, if that’s—sorry, just, one second—”

Jongin would have liked to deny that he had Mark’s voice so well memorized, but he couldn’t. He could only turn as fast as possible given the cramped space, and just in time to feel the crowd shift again as Mark cracked his water open and closed the fridge door. It was just enough time to feel his mouth tip into a smile unbidden, and see Mark’s eyes widen over the bottle opening, some of the cold liquid escaping between his lips. Just enough time for that, but not enough to prepare for the person behind Mark to stumble back into him, and subsequently shove Mark the couple of steps forward it took to throw him, and his entire open bottle of cold water, directly into Jongin’s chest. 

And lord, but it was cold.

The water immediately soaked through his shirt, like ice on his skin, and not at all helped by Mark’s hands pressing the drenched fabric against him when it might have hung loosely away. Still, Jongin would easily accept being wet and cold when it was accompanied by holding Mark Lee, rather than warm and dry but without him—which was the majority of the time.

“Oh my god, _hyung,_ I’m so _sorry,”_ Mark lamented, though he didn’t move away.

“No, it’s fine,” assured Jongin, scrambling mentally and finding a spot to put his empty cup down, “refreshing actually. Parties, you know? Hot. Gross. Now I’m...uh, all rinsed off.” 

Mark pressed his palm to Jongin’s sternum, the shirt seeping at his touch. “It’s soaked.”

“Yeah.” 

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay? Mark—”

“Come on, we’re getting you something dry, I can’t believe this, I leave my room for two minutes! And throw ice water on _you_ of all people!” 

If one person winding through a party was an art, two together was waging a small war, and Mark did it like a champion, dragging Jongin by the wrist back down the hallway, past the liplocked couple, all the way to his room once again. It almost amazed Jongin to see the door open and be brought inside, no longer an unconquerable vault but just a door that opened and shut behind them. 

The noise turned to a dull hum, the room surprisingly insulated, and Jongin’s ears missed it for the silence that failed to replace it’s security. He was left there, dripping on Mark’s rug while the younger boy dug around in a drawer wordlessly. 

Mark tossed him a shirt, something nondescript and black. 

“There, you can borrow that.”  
  
He could...borrow Mark’s shirt. Jongin did not know how to process this or explain why he froze with the fabric limp in his hands. Mark couldn’t know how insane of a thing he was offering.

“Mark, I can’t just take your shirt.”

“I know, I said borrow. And it’s Yukhei’s. You’re not gonna fit in anything of mine, haha, no way.” Mark looked at Jongin as though he was sillier than a little child. Which he might be. “Have you seen you? No.”

The shirt suddenly felt much lamer in Jongin’s hands, but it at least took the pressure off. He sighed and tucked it between his knees for the moment it took to remove his wet top, hesitating for a second before just dropping the shirt on the floor where there were no books and sliding the dry one over his head. As he pulled it down, he remembered Mark was there, and looked to see Mark sitting on his bed and staring very hard down at one of his textbooks. His eyes flicked up at Jongin’s sudden silence, then right back down.

“What?” Jongin asked, settling the shirt at his waist. 

“Nothing.”

Jongin paused. Oh. “Oh, I’m sorry, I should’ve changed in the bathroom or something, that was rude. I apologize.”

Mark pressed both hands against the sides of his book, sinking it into the bedspread. “That’s not... _hyung.”_

“You’re studying, I won’t keep interrupting you, but if you still want want water I bet I can get some back here safely—”

“Jongin hyung,” Mark interrupted. He held onto his book tightly, like if he let go he might accidentally fly off somewhere. “If I wasn’t your English tutor, do you think we’d still be friends?”

That was an alternate reality Jongin didn’t love to consider, one where he’d not tried to boost his resume at the last minute and ended up being taught by Canada’s finest product since maple syrup. He had a mental note for ten years down the road, when he was rich and successful, to donate some notable amount to the university’s scholarship tutoring program as a belated gesture of gratitude.

But aside from the tutoring, he didn’t know how they might have met. He just knew he hoped it would have happened either way. 

“I don’t know how we would have met if I hadn’t signed up for tutoring—” Jongin started, only for Mark to sigh.

“Yeah, I thought so.” 

“—But,” continued Jongin, somewhat firmly, “I think we would have met, either way. And anyway, we don’t have to worry about that, because I did sign up for this and we did meet. I’m really grateful for that. I like knowing you, Mark Lee.” 

Mark slowly adjusted his glasses, seeming to mull that over, and then pulled his legs in to sit cross-legged. His hands lacked the previous tension, instead resting loosely over the book. 

And Jongin waited. He didn’t have anywhere to hurry off to, but wanted to know his reassurances of Mark’s doubt, whatever it was, had sunk in, even if it took Mark a minute.

“Then, hyung,” Mark began slowly, “if I _wasn’t_ your English tutor, would—”

Moderately sound-proofed as the room was, it was not enough to muffle the undeniable sounds of something breaking, accompanied by several shrieks and a distinct yell that could only be Yukhei. It was loud enough and dramatic enough to make Mark wince and startle Jongin, and once it settled Mark sighed deeply, even wearily.

“That’s my cue.”

“You all planned to break something?” Jongin asked, baffled. The party really was another level.

Mark shook his head as he slid off his bed, closing his book as he went. “No, it’s just our standing practice. Once it’s loud enough for me to hear, or if there’s a commotion, the party ends. Just because the school administration can’t afford to kick out all these rich foreign kids, doesn’t mean they’ll let us level a piece of student housing. Come on.”

With that, Mark exited the room, using easily the loudest voice Jongin had ever heard out of him to call for his roommate. Jongin scooped up his wet shirt and followed, and soon had to acknowledge that the process of ending the party had ended their conversation. 

At any rate, there was a mess that looked a lot like Taemin for Jongin to worry about. Extricating him from the commotion around the broken dining room table took a considerable effort, but one Jongin was familiar with managing. As he hauled Taemin toward the door, Jongin spared a glance back to see if he could wave a goodbye, and then gave up on it. Mark looked plenty preoccupied digging Ten out from beneath a blanket of plastic cups. 

_Dear Diary,_

_The world for Mark Lee._

When Yukhei showed up unexpectedly at the door of Jongin and Taemin’s apartment, Jongin’s first thought was concern, followed quickly by confusion.

“How do you know where I live?” he asked, standing in the front doorway.

Yukhei shrugged. “I asked Mark, who asked Johnny, who asked that guy Sehun, who never replied to the text message. So then I asked Ten, who called Taemin...and then walked away with his phone while giggling. So I actually gave up, but I ran into Taeyong hyung and Baekhyun hyung outside the cafeteria, and Baehyun hyung told me.”

“You could have just said Baekhyun hyung.”

“Yeah, but I wanted you to know how annoying everyone we know is. Anyway, could I get my shirt back? Mark said he gave it to you at the party.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, come in.”

Jongin felt only subtly pleased with himself for prioritizing a laundry day soon after the night of the party, so that while Yukhei looked owlishly around their place he could go grab the clean, folded t-shirt from where it had been sitting on his desk chair.

“Here,” he said, returning and handing the item to Yukhei, who had taken a seat at the small kitchenette. “Thanks for that.”

Yukhei grinned, beamingly with his whole face in his signature way, which Jongin did rather like.

“No problem. My little Markie’s cute but, you know, not exactly our size. I only steal his clothes when I’m trying to mess with him. He whines so much whenever I wear his sweats, it’s so funny.” Yukhei laughed, a gleeful sound a few octaves higher than his deep speaking voice.

But the way he talked struck Jongin with a feeling he hadn’t considered before, and found himself horrified to consider so late.

“Wait are you...a thing? You and Mark? I mean roommates, that’s like, I could see it,” Jongin said, pressing a finger to his temple and imagining how cute a couple Mark and Yukhei would make and feeling the beginning twinges of envious agony. 

Yukhei’s eyes went wide and he waved both hands. “No man, no. We are not. I mean, he’s cute as fuck, I’ll give you that, but we’re roommates only. Well, ok, we did makeout that one time, but it was only because he was super stressed out and I was a little buzzed at the time…” 

Jongin’s mouth dropped open. 

“But it was just kissing!! I’m smashing elsewhere bro don’t worry, he’s free! And I know for a fact he’s into you.” 

“You...do?”

“Why would I lie?” Yukhei challenged. “Look, trust me, give him one sign and you’re in. And you want to be in, dude. If the one time we kissed is anything to go by, that little motherfucker is _good.”_ Leaning back in his chair, Yukhei ran his hands over his thighs, eyes going slightly unfocused. “He’s like. Energetic as hell. Climbed all over me, thought he was gonna rip my collar with the death grip he had on my shirt—“

“Ok, I get it, please stop,” begged Jongin, more because the mental image caused him very physical distress than that he was envious still. Well, he was, but feeling less threatened by Yukhei over all. 

“Sorry. Let me help you out, yeah? He’ll be done with his Chinese exam later tonight, probably like nine-ish? Catch him outside the language building and make a move, hyung.”

A move. Just make a move. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been trying to do just that, but the tip helped. 

“Thanks. You’re pretty cool, Yukhei.”

“Yeah? Think you can hype me up to Taemin hyung then?”

Jongin squinted at him, then nodded slowly. “Y...yes.”

Yukhei’s responding grin glowed. “Awesome.”

_Dear Diary,_

_I would do stupid things for this boy. I am...going to do stupid things._

_I’m doing them._

Jongin never claimed to be very creative or clever, especially not when it counted. To prove it—not that he thought anyone doubted him—he typically googled anything he didn’t know how to do and then just used the top result as his method, copying it as exactly as possible.

And yet, he found himself making an exception, this time, kind of. He somehow doubted that holding a boombox outside Mark Lee’s dorm window was going to be an effective way to express his feelings. Also it would be embarrassing and he was too tired for that. Writing his confession on an elaborate series of paper signs sounded like an extreme amount of effort. Nor was he particularly confident at composing poetry, and he didn’t know Mark’s schedule so he couldn’t guess if he was planning to visit home in Canada anytime soon, which removed any possibility of Jongin making a dramatic confession at the airport.

So basically, google’s suggestions of the top love confessions were useless to him. 

And anyway, he really just wanted to like, buy him bubble tea. 

Not that dramatic.

However, standing in the relative dark outside the language arts building, shivering because he hadn’t worn a warm enough jacket for this kind of coldly windy day—he would put the hood up, but people passing by already were giving him distrustful looks, and he didn’t need to encourage that and potentially end up arrested by campus security before Mark even showed up—felt pretty dramatic to Jongin. 

He read over the words on the piece of notebook paper in his hands for what had to be the sixty-fifth time by now. 

Very bad idea, this was. Terrible. Bad. Terribad. He should have had someone proofread. Fuck. A tiny, gremlin part of his brain suggested being drunk, because he’d apparently spoken English pretty well that way, but Jongin shut that down quickly. Even if he _could_ switch languages after shots, he couldn’t control what else he’d do. And anyway, he wanted to be totally sober for this.

The streetlamp overhead flickered a couple of times, and an owl hooted. It was already nine-fifteen. What if there was another door, and Mark had already left? 

Jongin groaned out loud and sunk into a crouch, pushing his fingers into his hair. 

Was he really doing this? It wasn’t like he didn’t have other homework sitting in his dorm room calling to him like a siren, a really pathetic one, the kind that didn’t even sound that sweet or look that pretty, but definitely was waiting to eat him alive. But he couldn’t think of anything else. He could picture his notebook even now, the scribbles in the margins full of Mark’s name and bits of English vocabulary like Jongin had yet to make it out of the third grade. 

Squinting at the page in his hands in the dark, he thought a third grader could probably do better anyway, so maybe he hadn’t.

“Hyung? What are you...hyung?”

Jongin jumped up like the ground was lava and the spot he’d been perching on had just disintegrated. Mark startled back, his face a portrait of surprise and confusion.

“Mark!”

“Y-yeah?!”

He opened his mouth, exhaled uselessly, and realized he didn’t know how to start. Why was this so hard? Had Jongin not asked out plenty of people in the past? He had, and successfully, and yet one Canadian boy in a hoodie—with hood up, because he was smarter than Jongin—and denim jacket with his backpack slipping off his shoulder and his glasses slipping off his nose had Jongin cotton-mouthed and blinking. 

Jongin raised his paper and tried to uncrease it to refresh his memory, fussing with it and his sweating hands, and then a breeze more confident than himself shoved its way past them and took the paper from Jongin’s hands like a teacher taking the assignment before he was finished. 

Shamefully, Jongin didn’t manage to keep in his cry of distress as the paper fluttered away, just awkwardly chased after to catch it, and failed, and had to watch it tumble down the lane. 

“Hyung…are you ok?” Mark asked, catching up to him and tilting his head to give Jongin the most concerned gaze ever.

“I’m…” Jongin tried to compose himself again, to look over Mark’s shoulder rather than at his soft, round eyes, and pushed both hands through his hair. “Can you just…”

Mark shuffled his shoes, lifting his shoulder and tugging the strap to hoist his backpack higher. “What’s going on?”

Good question. Jongin having a breakdown, that was what. 

He took a breath, forced himself to focus.

 _“Mark Lee,”_ he started, removing his hands from his hair to grasp them over his pocket, and doing his best to pronounce Mark’s name English-y, _“I have...some, something to say.”_

“Oh. Oh, ok.” 

Maybe Jongin was imagining it, but it did sort of look like Mark was blushing a little. At least, he was standing a little straighter, and gripping the strap of his bag very tightly with both hands, his chin tucked low inside the V of his hood and lips pressed firmly together.

 _“Yes.”_ Jongin continued, wishing desperately he still had his notes. Ugh. _“You are...very cute boy. And…”_ he swallowed. _“I like you.”_

As he said it, Mark’s shoulders rose up like he was filling up with steam and about to whistle. His lips opened but Jongin raised a hand, asking—

“Wait, wait, I’m not done,” he said, Korean slipping back over his words. “I’m, wait, ok… _I like you and,”_ heart beating wildly, Jongin paused, trying to remember what else, and covered his eyes with his hand so he wouldn’t have to keep looking at Mark like that. He continued in English once more. _“See you make…makes me happy, so I want you…_ uh,” he heard Mark’s surprised hitch of breath, but pressed on, _“want you go?…go on date, with me. Please.”_

Finally, Jongin dared to remove his hand and look at Mark, needing to see what kind of expression his effort had caused. In the orange-ish light from the streetlamp, Mark looked like he was fighting his own face. His eyebrows were entirely ready to fly away, while the corner of his lips twitched up even as he seemed to try to school them.

“Yeah?” he asked.

 _“Yes, if you want…”_ Jongin strained his brain— _“…to.”_

Mark laughed, a high-pitched, slightly strained sort of giggle like he couldn’t believe what Jongin had just said. To be fair, Jongin wasn’t that confident what he’d said had entirely made sense. 

“Hyung…you—” Mark was smiling, the open kind that showed all his top teeth, then only the front ones as he bit down over his whole bottom lip, taking a couple steps closer to Jongin.

“Hyung.”

“Y-yeah?”

“Can you say it again?”

Jongin exhaled all in one blow. “Oh, do you...really? Do I have to? Oh my god. Ok, um,” he rubbed his damp palms together then rubbed one over the back of his neck. _“Mark Lee, I…_ shit. Uh. _I really like you—”_

Mark broke into a giggle, sort of bouncing closer until he was nearly inside Jongin’s personal bubble, grinning and almost vibrating as he seemed unable to stop hopping from foot to foot very fast. 

He was very cute and Jongin was very into him, and losing his grasp on his limited English very quickly.

 _“I want take you out for bubbles tea,”_ he tried, _“okay?”_

A glint flickered in Mark’s eyes. “Hyung, you know, _I’m so glad you told me because I—”_ and then Mark went off, spitting out English so fast Jongin was sure he’d just missed the part where Mark had a successful rap career.

He caught…bits.

 _“…you’re so nice! And—”_ he lost track again, then, _“—thought I was imagining but—”_ and _“—too handsome for me so—”_ which made Jongin preen a little while entirely disagreeing, even though the rest hit his ears but didn’t translate to his brain at all. Finally, Mark stopped and breathed a few breaths, settling on his feet.

“Hyung.”

“Yes?”

Jongin wanted very much to reach out and take hold of Mark’s backpack straps, use them to yank him those remaining few centimeters where he could…maybe kiss him. Wow.

“Did you get all that?”

“No, not really. But if you write it down, I think I could work it out in a few hours? Maybe less,” Jongin admitted, trying not to take the smile Mark wore as too much of a positive indication when he hadn’t yet said anything Jongin could take as a definitive answer.

Mark laughed outright. “That’s ok, don’t worry. I might though, just for a fun assignment. Do you want me to simplify it for you?”

“Yeah, I would appreciate that, I’m kind of super nervous here, actually.”

“Jongin hyung, _I like you too. Let’s go on a date, together,”_ Mark said, his words clear and unhindered by stutter or hesitation. _“You can buy me tea, and you don’t have to speak English. And,”_ he bit his lip, tilting even closer, “you can even kiss me. I’d really like it if you did that.”

It was honest to god quite cold outside, but Jongin felt a blooming warmth from his scalp to his toes, a full body heat rush that originated purely from Mark Lee’s adorable face and the fact that he just validated several months’ worth of Jongin having regular crises over his sweetness.

“Wow,” he breathed, wondering how fast he could make a date happen and get that kiss. “I’d take you right now if anything was still open. Tomorrow?” His mind swirled, trying to think where the nearest tea shop was. “Or later, that’s fine, whenever is good for you, no rush I’m just. I can’t believe you said yes, I really thought I’d been being super creepy this whole time—”

“You’ve been a little weird, actually,” Mark said, making Jongin’s heart drop, “but I just thought you were like that or something. Still thought you were cool, I mean do think you’re cool.” 

“Uh. Thank you.” 

The wind took another opportunity to assert itself, filtering cold through Jongin’s hoodie, and Mark still bounced on the balls of his feet. He glanced up at Jongin, then away, and cleared his throat.

“I um, I meant now, by the way,” he said, not much louder than the wind.

“Now what?” Jongin asked, hunching his shoulders against the cold creeping over his skin.

“If you kissed me, now, I’d like it.” 

Mark pushed his glasses high on his nose with two fingers, then held his chin high as if to say he was ready, now, in actions as well as words.

Jongin exhaled as he looked at Mark, at the sincere sparkle in his eyes, the way he spoke confidently even while looking shy. It wasn’t far to lean. Not far at all to bend forward and, keeping his hands safely in his jeans pockets, meet where Mark angled his chin up. Barely an inconvenience, and truly a pleasure, just to gently kiss Mark’s small mouth, just for a moment. Just long enough to have Jongin seeing pink and imagining Heaven.

It was a cold kiss, the air outside too insistent in temperature to allow anything else, but Jongin would have kissed Mark even if his lips were frozen solid—or maybe not, just because that sounded a little wrong. But, to the same point. 

He felt so alive. Leaning back, opening his eyes to see Mark’s lashes flutter open as well, see the scrunch appear in his nose as he bit over his bottom lip again. 

“Wow,” Mark laughed, “wow. Again?”

Nodding even as he leaned in, Jongin couldn’t agree more. He freed his hands and hoped they weren’t too cold as he slid them inside Mark’s hood to frame his jaw, kissing him for real, capturing both lips with his and then adjusting higher and revelling in the feeling of Mark’s lower lip soft below his. Jongin nudged his nose alongside Mark’s, bumping his glasses once then careful not to do so again, more concentrated on following the boy’s tiny cues to adjust and slide his lips to newly press them against Mark’s. And Mark eagerly encouraged, responding with tiny sighs and loosening his grip on his bag to ball his fists against Jongin’s stomach, sliding close enough to trap them there. 

“Mark,” Jongin breathed, prying away just an inch. 

“Yeah?”

“I would kiss you for hours, I really would,” he stressed, “but it’s so cold. Also, it’s late, aren’t you tired?”

As much as he wanted nothing more than to pick the boy up and hook his legs around his waist and kiss him til they both passed out from air loss, the wind _did_ keep sneaking up his back and eventually campus security would find and annoy them.

“Oh wow, I totally forgot…about like, everything,” Mark said, blinking and glancing to the side as if he just remembered there was a world around them. 

Jongin could relate. He forgot about most things when Mark was there, too. Except when he felt like his shoulder blades were in fact made of ice. 

“I’ll walk you home.”

Despite the cold, it was peaceful walking with Mark, chatting in little pieces as they crossed the mostly empty campus. Peaceful enough to make Jongin realize he’d been far more stressed over trying to ask Mark out than he ever had been about learning a whole language for his job applications. But he figured, after getting over the hurdle of a confession in his second language, he could confidently enough put _English Professional Fluency_ on his resume. He doubted they could ask him anything harder than what he’d just done, and he wasn’t done learning from Mark just yet, either. There was still plenty he wanted to learn from, and about, Mark Lee. He sure knew how to pluck Jongin's heartstrings, so maybe he'd ask for guitar lessons next.

_Dear Diary,_

_I guess you could say it all ended with the English tutoring lessons._

**Author's Note:**

> over 10k words and just one measly kiss? i am sorry for this.
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/ImJaeBabie)   
> or twt @imjaebabie


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